HA Bible Study

Deuteronomy 21:10-14 When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

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“When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife. You should reject her as trafe, refuse to take her into yuor house but make her live in rags with dirt under her nails while she laments her father and her mother a full month.

After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if she does not want to be with you, you shall not sell her for money but find for her a pimp.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: The conservative notion that you can cut costs and improve services by outsourcing government functions to private enterprise is a myth. Privatization costs taxpayers more because private contractors have the same costs as the government plus the added cost of the contractor’s profit. Under pressure from politicians to pare costs, contractors often cut corners that result in decreased quality of services. Underfeeding inmates and inadequate health care are common problems in privately-run prisons. Private correctional companies also are prone to corruption, as we saw in the shocking Indiana case in which judges were bribed by a crooked contractor to sentence juveniles charged with minor violations to lengthy incarcerations. Privatization is a sham whose only purpose is to line the pockets of greedy private businessmen with taxpayer money.

Since when are private prisons about incarceration? Its all about profit. CCA and the GEO Group etc are cash cows.

Private prisons are the fastest growing industry in the country, and are among the most stringent and active lobbyists in Congress for increasing penalties for simple drug possession, and increased enforcement in the prohibition of marijuana. They were the driving lobbying force behind the massive differential in the crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentencing guidelines and the mandatory minimum sentencing laws, including the “three strikes” laws that swept the country back in the late 80s and early 90s. They pretty much wrote the laws, then submitted them to a well paid off congress for rubber stamp approval.

They are also the major financier of the propaganda against legalization of marijuana.

Police officer retirement funds are heavily invested in these companies, as are city employee and general city/county trust funds. There is huge profit in this industry, and the politicians are happy to go along as long as the campaign cash keeps flowing, and the trust funds keep growing.

It gives them a natural source for their campaign propaganda, as they can always campaign on the ever increasing need for law enforcement and the funds that go with it, as well as being seen as being tough on crime by accepting the campaign cash and outright bribes that come from these companies. In return, those companies funnel money into the third party campaign supporters, the PACs etc., in support of these politicians political campaign operations. They are also major financiers of the TEA party organizations around the country.

Seriously, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent this way by these companies. There are tens of billions of dollars at stake here.

There is huge profit in crime. As long as that profit structure remains in place, there will always be crime to campaign on, and make money on, and create jobs with. It is an entirely incestuous industry.

What happened to ‘Thou shalt not kill’ – doesn’t that undermine the predicate of the passage, and you’re defense of it? How can you go on about not killing, and then lay down rules for the treatment of refugees as sex toys?

Regulating the coercive powers of government – arrest, incarceration, confiscation – is absolutely central to protecting liberty. I suppose long ago the confiscatory powers were corrupted – getting a municipality to use eminent domain to get the land you wanted to use was a familiar tactic of the more rapacious of the capitalists (see Texas Rangers stadium; Bush, GW, for an excellent example).

Now we have private police, and private prisons – and Xe is just a prelude to the full-on private army. No longer are these functions something we do as a people, with some measure of regret over their necessity. No, now they’re industries that see every one of us as a potential cash stream, if only they could get more restrictive laws to allow them to take possession of more citizens. This is disgusting.

I’ll bet that the case of the juveniles in PA, where the corrupt judge and the for-profit jail is not an isolated incident, and one we’re going to see more and more of, especially with judges elected with the backing of big right-wing money, like some on our Supreme Court.

Also, looks like those scum-bags in PA are still winding their way through the courts. I hope they rot in hell. God? You listening?

Perhaps God, and by that I mean the guy that the Jews/Christians/Muslims worship, is in over his head? Perhaps we’re seeing the Peter Principle in action, on a cosmic scale.

Go back in time, to when God was just one of many. Was he Ba’al back then, or some other thunder god-patron of a relatively minor bronze-age nomadic tribe? Was he really prepared for the MUCH MUCH bigger job that being the supreme deity for a global culture entailed? Could he have known how successful Jesus, and later Mohammad were going to be? Is He just out of His league? Do we need to go to some sort of ecclesiastical head-hunter, and get a new CEO/Supreme Deity?

We’re headed back to the conditions of ‘The Jungle’ by Upton Sinclair. Workers are voice-less, right-less, money-less and eminently replaceable cogs in a great big money-printing machine that benefits a very few.

I don’t think we ever really escaped a feudal system, but any of the niceties that workers fought to the death for are now being systematically dismantled – and the Republicans (and their corporatist Democratic allies, you know who you are!) are leading the charge, like the docile and obedient pet poodles that they are.

We’re careening toward disaster with the way we’ve allowed our economy to be structured, and I just don’t know whether to stay and fight, or jump ship for New Zealand or Denmark or some other civilized locale.

I think we need to find out who the stockholders are and publish their names on a Blog somewhere. If we can figure that out we might be able to apply pressure through boycotts or propaganda.

Who is making the big money? Who is supporting the industry? What are the socioeconomic effects of the industry and are they a net positive influence on society? Does it serve to promote the General Welfare?

Why is it that we cannot hold him accountable for the actions of his followers?

Sort of reminds me of GWB – bumbling through life, just getting by, mostly on his family’s reputation and money, and then BAMMO – he’s at the top and in WAY over his head.

How’d that happen? Well, he was a front man – the amiable and bumbling front man for some of the most evil people on the planet.

So, who’s behind God? There are certainly some truly evil motherfuckers on the front lines: Robertson, Perkins, the Pope, much of the Bible-thumping Republican party, Ahmadinejad, bin’Ladin, Leiberman, Netanyahu – but I think of them more like used car dealers, selling the hate to the rubes retail, keeping the division and war-engines stoked.

Who is really profiting? Who is really making out with this fool posing as God?

According to the story, Jesus got himself tortured and killed because he went around claiming to be Me. Then, offended by this, the Romans went on to destroy Jesus’ people, exile them for two millennia, and claim that Jesus himself was now their God!

Oh yeh, the Christians, in Jesus name, went on to spread the word of Rome under the very symbol of Jesus’ torture.

This is success???

As for Deuteronomy,

My words are plainly visible, many .. not a few prophets, have found those words. Read Deuteronomy for what it is. Where do you see My voice saying this is My word? The book, like many others, is a record of one people’s efforts to understand itself.

Just because someone isn’t particularly smart doesn’t men they cant come up with a good idea occasionally. I think gravity was a great idea. It keeps me from spilling my beer.

Of course, the downside of that is, it makes a bigger mess when I do. However, knowing the effects of loose liquids on delicate instrumentation, perhaps gravity prevents an even larger mess by drawing such liquids to the floor where they can be more easily mopped up. Noodles forbid I have loose droplets of beer floating around my computer room.

Did you see that Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has some very close and strong ties to the private prison industry who, if I may point out, helped write and lobbied to get passed, and are set to score bigtime on the incarceration of illegals.

Excellent post this morning at DailyKos. I’ve been reading through the comment thread – and not over here so much.

@17 Cute. But you’re still the one they’re all looking toward for guidance. You’re the one whom they all claim to be following, and waging their wars in your name. One would hope you might be able to do something about that – that is, assuming a reasonable measure of competence on your part.

@17 Cute. But you’re still the one they’re all looking toward for guidance. You’re the one whom they all claim to be following, and waging their wars in your name.

In “My” name???

And which of these names do you think is mine?

As for guidance, give Me a break! I provide lots of guidance. Is it really so hard to understand that space is curved, poverty kills, nothing is true and untrue at one time, that Fuji is beautiful, slavery is wrong, or chocolate tastes good? What better teaching can I give than the keys to your own genome or the empathy you feel for the ill?

I am that I am.

By the way ..

Wouldn’t you think that there would be easier answers if the believers here really believed in Me, rather than in some piece of the true cross or fancy dressed priest, or book written on cow hide.

I like this. If we Eastsiders go to war with Seattle, and I take a captive from Seattle and find her comely, all I need to do is shave her hair and pare her nails. Then all I have to do is kick her out?

@29: The Word does indeed hurt. Pretty tough to defend the claptrap — particularly the part of the bible with the Bronze Age dickwaving. The trolls routinely get their asses kicked in the Bible Study thread when they try. Can’t be very fun.

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